In recent years, there has been increased interest of parents as well as others to filter out objectionable, obscene or pornographic materials from media, particularly Internet-related sources. Currently, a few software and Internet-service-provider products filter offensive content from Internet material through a combination of highly tailored filtering capability and recognition of a wide variety of questionable content on individual sites. Default Internet blocking may include sex, illegal activity/drugs, and hate/intolerance categories. Other filtering technologies may blank out objectionable words or block Internet content by keyword patterns in uniform resource locators (URLs) or Internet addresses.
While efforts have been made to develop technology for filtering out objectionable material from Internet media, there is little focus on technologies related to selective filtering of objectionable material from digital audio streams, such as those broadcast from digital radio stations and satellite radio broadcasts. Currently, there is little or no parental control functionality for selectively blocking specific obscene words and phrases from digital audio or video streams. Current blocking techniques focus on blocking an entire channel over which the audio or video is transmitted. For example, a music recording may have a few obscene words in its song lyrics, and any screening for objectionable material that is done typically blocks the entire channel on which the audio is played. The user only has the choice of listening to the uncensored version or none at all. The user is unable to limit or modify the playing of specific objectionable portions of a data stream. Currently, there exists no parental control functionality for selectively blocking specific obscene words and phrases from digital audio streams.
Techniques exist today for encoding additional data within a stream of broadcast or playable digital audio. For example, a digital radio station can broadcast additional encoded digital data within its audio stream that include information on the name and title of the song being played. Many digital radio receivers are able to extract that data from a digital broadcast and display the name and title on their front light-emitting display (LED) panels. These techniques are typically limited to name and title information, though contain no information regarding offensive content.
An improved method and system for screening offensive material in digital transmissions would allow a user, particularly a parent, more control over specific objectionable material broadcast or played from an audio or video medium. It is desirable, therefore, to provide a system and method that screen offensive material in various types of digital transmissions, and to overcome the challenges and obstacles described above.